China’s Global Times issued an incisive critique of the G7 on the opening of its annual summit in France. In a June 15 article, the Global Times Editorial Board says the G7 is suffering from a “leader’s illusion,” as the grouping is quickly losing any semblance of leadership on the global stage. The countries in the grouping are experiencing “deep divisions and unmistakable decline” internally, coming across instead as a “club of wealthy nations,” seemingly divorced from the “irreversible historical changes” occurring in the rest of the world.
Even though the Global South has today become the “backbone force of promoting global growth” and the G7 accounts for less than 10% of global GDP, the G7 still seeks to position itself as the “world’s leader” and to package its own interests as “international rules.”
The editorial concludes by giving its recommendation: “The global challenges facing the world today have long exceeded the capacity of any single bloc or ‘small-circle mechanism.’” The only solution to the problems facing the world today must rest on a foundation of “advancing an equal and orderly multipolar world and promoting universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization.”
